Lava Rivers in Pacaya Volcano, Guatemala

---

First of all, I am no volcanologist. So, bear with me, because I might use the wrong technical words for what I saw...

The Pacaya volcano is an active volcano located approximately 30 km South of Guatemala City. Its summit is at 2552 mt. It is considered a "stratovolcano", which means it is tall, conical, has periodic, explosive eruptions, its lava is highly viscuous, cool and hardens before spreading too far (out of shame for writing something way too wrong, I just got this from Wikipedia).

After approx 100 inactive, Pacaya erupted in 1961 and has pretty much been active since then. Its active cone is called the MacKenney cone, and its located on the SW of the volcano. Until this year, there was another crater, called "Cerro Chino", to the NW of the volcano. This crater had been active in the XIX century.

In the recent past (4-5 yrs), the Pacaya kept doing what it usually does, which is to have small explosions in the MacKenney cone but without any major incident. It was actually possible to hike up to the "hole" in the active cone and see small chunks of lava erupt every 2 or 3 minutes, flying 2-3 meters high. I did this in Dec 04.

However, in the first months of 2006, for natural reasons, a "window" was opened on the north wall of the MacKenney cone. Since the volcano is active, there is lava in its interior, and well, with the open window, the lava began to flow out. Initially, it seems that it filled the Cerro Chino, and then it poured out of it, flowing down thorough the slopes of Pacaya.

On the weekend of Aug 12-13th, I joined a group of 70-90 people (mainly from Guatemala City) and hiked the volcano, camping overnight nearby the areas covered by this new lava. We arrived to the base around 830 PM. News about the lava rivers have spread in Guatemala and there was even a traffic jam on the base of the volcano. I counted more than 200 cars parked or leaving the place as I walked to the starting point of the hike. We probably started our ascend at 9PM and arrived to our camping site by 1130. Around midnight, we went up to visit the "lava rivers" flowing down. They were 100-150 mt above our site.

It is hard to describe the slow movement of lava and how it flows, stops and eventually cracks. I taped some videos and uploaded them in youtube:




We went up and were able to stand in a place 50 mt South of Cerro Chino, where there is (still) a small monument. There, at times, the skies cleared and we were even able to see small villages located East of the volcano. Sometimes, the summit of the volcano was also visible, and there it was, somehow ominous, with a red glow, quiet.

Around 2 AM we came down to our camping site (100 to 150 mt below the lava rivers) and stayed the night. At 7 AM we woke up and by 8 AM we descended on an alternative road, to the NW of the volcano. By 10 AM we were on the base, again, where we took our buses to go back to Guatemala City.

---